“In December 2023, the Hawaii government was telling rental owners they were about to ‘drop the hammer’ or go ‘nuclear’ on short-term housing rentals on Maui, as several thousand wildfire victims were still living in hotels.”
“She no longer followed fashion; she had created a fashion all her own.”
Source: Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow
“The next draft of a bill outlining the punishments for homosexuality must omit all mention of females; it was unnecessary for 'women don't do such things'.”
Source: Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow
“Like most men of his kind, he viewed religion as a precious and powerful instrument for directing the female conscience.”
Source: The Odd Women
“[Florence Nightingale's] sister's condition was all too common among many a well-off spinster, 'condemned to spend her days in a meaningless round of trivial occupations, which ate away at her vital strength.' Parthenope's illness, Florence thought, was simply caused by boredom, 'by the conventional life of the present phase of civilisation, which fritters away all that is spiritual in women.' Watching Parthenope lose her sanity, her strength, even the ability to walk, had left Florence aghast. She observed that all around her women were 'going mad for the want of something to do'. She was determined to avoid this fate for herself.”
Source: Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow
“God is never tired of bringing the sun out every morning, taking it in the evenings and bringing out the moon.”
Source: The Prince and the Pauper
“Victoria had been encouraged to believe that she was weak, inadequate and unable to cope without [Albert].”
Source: Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow
“There is no denying that these women had hard lives, but care needs to be taken with these articles about them because they were written in a Victorian genre known as 'slumming', a semi-salacious relishment of the misfortunes of lower-class people.”
Source: Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow
“While Alice had played her part in watching, waiting and attending on her father, Victoria herself hadn't been much use. ... Alice wasn't a trained nurse, but ... tradition and convention insisted in any case that a daughter was better than the most professional nurse available. (Tradition and convention were wrong about this, as Victoria herself later admitted.)”
Source: Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow
“Victoria, who lacked a father, had long sought mentors or alternative fathers in Uncle Leopold, Melbourne and then in Albert himself. Yet she couldn't get him to listen to her. It was in any case, a vain hope. A Victorian man was failing in his masculinity if he failed to control his wife, and Albert could never quite control a wife who was also a queen. So they were doomed to clash.”
Source: Queen Victoria: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Widow